Mount Vista, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Mount Vista, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Mount Vista lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Mount Vista — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mount Vista — the short answer
Mount Vista, Washington: USDA zone 8b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- Clark County normal — NOAA 1991–2020, nearest to this town
- Town area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. No 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid, so the hard-freeze dates are Clark County’s — the closest measured record, labelled as such rather than passed off as local.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8b is Mount Vista's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mount Vista's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mount Vista
Each reading below is measured for Mount Vista itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
From county recordsMount Vista runs about 217 days between hard freezes (read from Clark County, the closest normal to Mount Vista) — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMount Vista sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Mount Vista is in
Mount Vista sits in the Willamette Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Marine West Coast Forest. That is read at Mount Vista's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clark County.
What Grows in Mount Vista
Every plant below cleared Mount Vista's own zone 8b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mount Vista?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Mount Vista
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mount Vista checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 552 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mount Vista
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mount Vista. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WA WSU VANCOUVER BRANCH CAMPUSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- MT VISTABrownfields · 0.7 mi
- PLEASANT VALLEY SCHOOL VANCOUVERBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- CLARK PUBLIC UTILITIESPFAS · 1.1 mi
- SALMON CREEK MEDICAL & DENTALBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- SAFEWAY 580Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- MILLER PAINT CO INC 20TH AVE STE 104Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- MOBIL #62529Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- LEGACY SALMON CREEK HOSPITALBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- LEGACY SALMON CREEK MEDICAL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- WALGREENS 16067Brownfields · 1.4 mi
- VISTA MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mount Vista's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Mount Vista.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mount Vista
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mount Vista
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mount Vista, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mount Vista — Superfund (16 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (76 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Mount Vista
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mount Vista average
Your land is one point inside Mount Vista
Everything above resolves to Mount Vista as a whole — one PHZM band, read across 3K acres, with hard-freeze dates borrowed from Clark County’s record because no 30-year normal resolves at this town’s own centroid. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at town scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Mount Vista Average
Mount Vista Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Mount Vista
- ●One soil character for all of Mount Vista
- ●Frost dates read at Mount Vista's scale: Mar 28 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mount Vista's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mount Vista
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mount Vista, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mount Vista averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mount Vista — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mount Vista average
How we know this about Mount Vista
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Clark County’s record, because none resolves here; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Mount Vista
When does frost risk typically end in Mount Vista?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Vista typically lands around Mar 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 18.
When is the first frost in Mount Vista?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Vista typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mount Vista?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mount Vista sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 17, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mount Vista?
The federal record around Mount Vista runs heavier than most — 1,011 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (582), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mount Vista?
From about Oct 1 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Oct 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mount Vista's scale — its 8b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mount Vista's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Mount Vista’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Mount Vista's own scale — the 3,347 acres it covers and 1,011 documented sites around it; 5 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mount Vista's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- 1,011 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mount Vista, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mount Vista's boundary and the 3,347 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mount Vista's own centroid, the Willamette ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mount Vista checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- The 28°F hard-freeze dates — Mount Vista has no normal of its own, so its county's is the closest measured readfrom Clark County
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mount Vista's 3,347 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clark County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clark County
- The growing challenges every Washington grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Washington
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Clark County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mount Vista's 3,347 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mount Vista you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,347 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Mount Vista-wide figureread your own land →